# ashy
## English
### Etymology

From Middle English asshy, asky, equivalent to ash +‎ -y.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˈæʃi/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Rhymes: -æʃi

### Adjective

ashy (comparative ashier, superlative ashiest)
* Resembling ashes (especially in colour); (of a person’s complexion) unusually pale as a result of strong emotion, illness, etc.
    Synonyms: ashen, cineraceous, cinereous
** 1593, [William Shakespeare], Venus and Adonis, London: […] Richard Field, […], →OCLC‎:Still is he sullein, still he lowres and frets, Twixt crimson shame, and anger ashie pale,
** 1634 (first performance), Thomas Heywood, Loves Maistresse: Or, The Queens Masque. […], London: […] Robert Raworth, for Iohn Crowch; and are to bee sold by Iasper Emery, […], published 1636, →OCLC, Act IIII:Tell her that sicknesse, with her ashie hand, Hath swept away the beauty from my cheekes,
** 1897, Bram Stoker, chapter 11, in Dracula, New York, N.Y.: Modern Library, →OCLC, chapter IX, page 126:Again the operation; again the narcotic; again some return of colour to the ashy cheeks, and the regular breathing of healthy sleep.
** 1968, Ursula K. Le Guin, chapter 7, in A Wizard of Earthsea, page 123:Beyond that black clot the sea lay, pale with last ashy gleam of day.
* Comprising, containing, or covered with ash.
    Synonym: cinereous
** 1591, Ed[mund] Sp[enser], “Ruines of Rome”, in Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie. […], London: […] William Ponsonbie, […], →OCLC:Ye heauenly spirites, whose ashie cinders lie Vnder deep ruines, with huge walls opprest,
** 1715–1720, Homer, translated by Alexander Pope, “Book 23”, in The Iliad of Homer, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC, page 75:[…] where yet the Embers glow, Wide o’er the Pyle the sable Wine they throw, And deep subsides the ashy Heap below.
** 1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter X, in Great Expectations […], volume III, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 151:[…] I saw her sitting on the hearth in a ragged chair, close before, and lost in the contemplation of, the ashy fire.
** 1991, Edwidge Danticat, “A Wall of Fire Rising”, in Krik? Krak!, New York: Soho Press:He lit the paper until it burned to an ashy film.
* (African-American Vernacular) Having dry or dead skin (therefore discolored).
** 1969, Maya Angelou, chapter 4, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, New York: Random House, →ISBN, page 22:It was summer and his pants were short, so the pickle juice made clean streams down his ashy legs […]
** 2015, Paul Beatty, chapter 11, in The Sellout‎, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, page 159:After passing it under her runny nose, a skinny chalk-colored girl raised a hand so disgustingly ashy, so white and dry-skinned, that it could only be black.

#### Derived terms

* ashily
* ashiness
* ashy minivet
* ashy tit
* ashy woodpecker
* ashy woodswallow

#### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

### Anagrams

* Hays, SYHA, Shay, hays, shay, yahs